my hands in my pocket and my head in the clouds

Another Christmas comes and goes, and each year I am shocked when I look at a calendar and realize how close the New Year is. Since the trip to Rhode Island I have felt so amazing. I don't know what it is, and could easily be just a lot of high confidence days. Or, maybe I could really finally be feeling like myself again. Whatever it is...be it related to this year's size smaller Christmas jeans (!!) and camis or a lot of time to sit in coffee shops and think...I'm glad it's happening. I love feeling this way. I feel like I can do anything.

I'm not usually one for New Years' resolutions, mostly because I don't keep them. But...this last half of 2007 was pretty terrible, and I think that saying 2008 will be drama free if it kills me is a sure-fire way to guarantee the amazing semester that I feel coming. So...I guess that's a resolution of sorts.

I also want to do something spontaneous and dumb...or a few spontaneous dumb things, just to say I did.

There's something about Harford County. It's like a black hole. People just stay here...or are glad to come back...and I don't understand it. When I come home I'm always afraid that I will fall back into the girl I was in high school and lost all of the passions that I had about life...about making a difference. It's honestly very scary. I guess it's okay for some...if you want to raise a family here, it's a good idea...and close to places to work. But...it lacks an appreciation for arts and for culture...and an appreciation for people who want to explore what is beyond the confines of this northern Maryland town.

But...my family is indeed always amazing and the Christmas celebration was quite perfect. A quiet day with the family, and an evening at a family friends' house with a very nice bar.

*sigh* Ok...2008...bring it.

Someday, I want to celebrate the new year in the very first place that the new year hits...did that make sense? Where is that?

merry christmas

Merry Christmas, readers. I hope that everything the season is supposed to bring you is brought, be it in a package, through prayer or in the arms of family and friends...or all three of those things and more.

To me, the meaning of Christmas lies in the end of Linus' speech from the Gospel of Luke.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
"Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace, goodwill toward men."
-Luke 2:13-14-

But, Christmas, like everything else, is in the eye of the beholder.

As my great grandmother would have said: Merry, Merry, everyone!

Oh, and in the spirit of giving and reaching out to the rest of the world check out www.freerice.com Expand your vocabulary while donating rice to countries in need through the United Nations. Each question you answer right donates 20 grains of rice to the United Nations' effort to end world hunger. You can play for as long as you like, donating as much as you can...and it also helps fight illiteracy. Pretty cool, huh?

Peace

on selling myself short

Maybe I should have evaluated Shepherd's Masters of Arts in Teaching program earlier. Then, maybe I wouldn't have put all of my eggs in the living in town basket as soon as I did.

I did the research last night...and there's no way I could possibly apply for the MAT program for the fall semester. I need to take and pass the PRAXIS I and II, and have 50% of my coursework finished for my concentration area. I don't even know what the hell that last part means.

So...that's out, and I'm faced with yet again a decision.

Mom suggested I take some English classes at Shepherd in the fall, and take the PRAXIS I and II this semester and over the summer and in the fall, and apply for the program starting spring 2009. I could live in Shepherdstown, as planned, work someplace, as planned, and only lose one semester in preparation for my MAT. This is a perfectly safe, logical plan for my life.

Shepherdstown. Shepherdstown is safe. I know the town, the people in the shops. I know that I can sit at the Lost Dog for an hour or two and someone I know will wander in and say hello. I know I can go on a long walk and sit at the monument and read if I get frustrated or stressed. I know I can walk into one of the apartment buildings, or to West Woods or any of the traditional halls and find someone to watch TV with or talk to. I know I fit in there, and I know I am comfortable there. I know I'm safe.

I've always been safe. I'm everything a well brought up white middle class girl from suburban Maryland should be. I was rarely absent in high school, played in the marching band and acted in the school plays. I graduated on a sunny day in June and spent my last summer at home working with a community theatre. I went to college in the fall. Had a boyfriend there and liberated myself from him when I joined a fraternity that spring. I don't skip classes, only drink on the weekends, I do my homework and I'll graduate from college in four years. I make my parents proud. This all is expected of me.

Maybe the fact that all of my ideas of what my future should be have fallen through means I should disregard safety. Maybe, staying in Shepherdstown and staying in school is selling myself short of everything I could accomplish. Maybe I should stop deleting e-mails from CISabroad.com, and look into that abroad internship again. Maybe I should just do what I want to do next year: see the world...meet people...experience life. What good is a journalist that never experienced her own life? How can I write about someone else's fabulous life without writing a few stories of my own?

I should just come clean with myself...I don't want to be safe anymore. I don't want to go straight into a career and wake up on my 40th birthday and realize that I've been sleeping my entire life.

I'm back to square one...I don't want to be afraid of the next step.

Peace in the Middle East

misadventure

We landed safely in Rhode Island this morning, and I am happy to say that I have, in this past year, out grown my fear of flying. This is a good thing. This is a very good thing. In fact, I would not have panicked at all had the landing not come out of nowhere and feel like we suddenly dropped out of the sky. The strange man next to me was reading my "Rolling Stone" over my shoulder and commented that "Rockstar" by Nickelback should have been higher on this list of 100 best songs than 100. "It was actually a GOOD song," he insisted.

I laughed uncomfortably and retrieved my personal items from under the seat in front of me.

We went to a French cafe in Providence for lunch. At the end of our meal this French waiter who reminded me of a French version of Domenico from "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" came to our table with my mom's left overs wrapped in tin foil shaped like a dog. We started talking to him because the dog was absolutely adorable. He said he was from Paris and he married an American woman and came to the United States to be with her, but they want to go back to Paris.

My dad told him I want to go to Europe, and the French man said:

"Go. Let her go, and if she doesn't want to come back, let her stay. There is nothing wrong with this country. This is a wonderful country, but they only care about money. Go there, and you can just spend time with people building relationships with people for not a lot of money. Money is important, but other things are too. Go, promise me you'll go."

I think that little French man may have changed my life. Funny...how things start fitting together exactly when you need them to...

Peace

i'm too sweet for rock and roll

Alas, I've felt every emotion that poor boy feels throughout all of 'Almost Famous.' There's a lot standing up against me as a journalist...and a music journalist at that. I'm not aggressive by any means. I'm also not male, like most rock journalists...and sad to say, a lot of people still don't take women seriously.

But...I'm passionate. More than anything else, I have passion. And I have my old 'Rolling Stones' and I can flip through them and think to myself, 'I wish i wrote that.' I can imagine my byline there. I'm willing to learn. You don't have to be an expert on a band to write about them. William Miller wasn't a Stillwater expert...he just loved what he was doing. And I do love what I do...or at least have the potential to do.

And, once I finish doing all that...I'll teach it to the kids like me...or even while I'm doing it, I'll teach it to them. I've never been that stand-out student that is amazing at everything. No one ever really notices anything I do. But...critics and supporters alike will tell you that I love what I do.

And...sure thing, I'm too sweet for rock and roll...but, I'm okay with that.

"We take all kinds of pills to get all kinds of thrills but the thrills we've never known is the thrill that will hit ya when you get you're picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone..."

Just a thought...it's been bugging me.

sometimes i drive or ride with my eyes closed tight...

This song came over shuffle while I was making myself presentable for the people in this small town today:

Skyline Drive - Mae
Sometimes I run, but I'm not afraid.
Why must you bring up all the mistakes I've made?
She makes me smile, but you come around.
The wind in her hair reflects the sunset I see.

You make it seem like it was yesterday.
But we've come a long way out of the rain.
Can't seem to figure out what happens after this.
Why can't I?

Why must you say I made a mess out of things?
I won't believe it.
Tonight feels right like I'm dancing on air.
I'll make it right, I'll make it right.
Pull over to the station and fill up on fuel.
And what will I do?

Sometimes I drive or ride with my eyes closed tight
because if the skyline looks this way
then I don't want to sleep tonight.
Never giving up, always seeking light,
we must always try, try with all our might.

So, as I'm getting ready, I thought about this. I've had a lot to think about since Friday, quite frankly. I've been told I need to think more, like a little child. This upsets me, as much as I know it's true and as much as I hate to admit I'm wrong. So, this afternoon before I had a coffee with Laura, I went for a drive through all the familiar back roads that served as my therapist between the ages of 16 and 18. And I put in a new CD that made me happy and I sang and I thought.

This semester has been the most difficult semester I've had since I've been at Shepherd. Not only academically, but emotionally. Two production classes as time consuming as single cam and animation with an internship was probably a terrible idea, but my writing grew and I definitely developed a love affair with film, tedious as it may be. But, academically speaking it was one of my best...I can boast a 3.4 GPA, which I was impressed by considering all of my less than productive nights spent pacing Birch and crying.

That makes me sound pathetic, but I think that's the only way I can describe it. Emotionally, I hit an all time low this fall. Never have I ever felt this out of control of how I felt, but that started in the summer - it just continued. It's frustrating, expecting something to go away once your back and in the place where you thrive the most, but to have it only get worse and to knock you out for complete evenings, or worse, afternoons. I felt like there was nothing I can do, and for certain, Rhonda helped me out of a pretty bad position and I'm better now. I don't sleep as much, but, sleepytime tea provides me with the coma I need. I've never cried so much...ever. I'm typically not a crier. I'm typically not dependent. I'm typically not a huge bitch. But, then again, I'm typically not a lot of things I was this semester.

I value my friends more than anything else in the world. Especially some of the friendships that were made stronger this semester. I suppose...a situation that probably should have been avoided for my own personal health couldn't have been. I wasn't willing to give up all of those late nights and bad TV, but maybe I should have?

That doesn't seem fair to me...or to them...or to anyone, but maybe it would have made things easier.

I miss last spring...when things were happy and fresh. I need to change a few things, or I'm never going to be able to feel that again.

So...here's to a new plan for 2008. A plan that doesn't involve drama and feeling through my tear ducts. Here's to simply living and soaking in each moment. To writing and reading and learning. And adventures. And everything I possibly can. And not letting it get to me...and to a new romance, perhaps...or new friends. And simply to love. Because, love is the only thing that keeps us going...and I believe that more than anything. And here's to sticking with my faith in God, and listening to Him and going in the direction He points me for once.

But, mostly...to love. And focus and concentration.

No more hate and animosity.

(If that didn't make sense, it wasn't meant to...and now on to your regularly scheduled program.)

I bought myself a Scissor Sisters CD today...and I dig it to death already.

Peace in the Middle East

it's finally here!

Oh, winter break...how I love you. Oh, how I've needed you in my life. Oh, and hellO Gingerbread Latte!

I arrived home this evening after a day of looking for Christmas gifts in town and getting locked out of my room (which I also got locked out last night) and packing my things up. I did some more Christmas shopping since the weather that never came cancelled caroling.

I'm home and my life needs a serious evaluation. I feel like I've been on a downward spiral since last summer...and I'm fixing it.

Ubermensch

Ladies and gentlemen...my YouTube premier as a filmmaker. Ubermensch is about a guy who thinks he's a superhero...but isn't. He thinks he has an arch nemesis and everything. It makes for an awkward situation...

Enjoy.

women of the world, raise your right hand...

I love this ad campaign. I wish the right hand ring fad hadn't ended so suddenly.

I wish my friends would stop getting engaged and expecting a dramatic "OMGZ!!" sort of response. It's not my scene...I can't even imagine what it would be like to have to just call someone by fiance for years and years on end. I guess my whole thing is, I think a fiance is a fancy boyfriend. I think most women get engaged to get a ring and get that extra choke hold on their poor boyfriend. It's sad. I thought we were supposed to be raised to be stronger than that. I don't even see the point of engagement, unless it's to just play married. We do that in elementary school.

So, future husband, if you're reading this...I don't want to be engaged for more than 11 months. I think it's stupid. I think it all is. Or, I'm just bitter.

I've been in the comm. lab since 5:00 today. I'm leaving as soon as my animation clip finishes rendering for the night. It's cold and dreary and it makes me sad.

BUT! The film is done and it looks really good. I'll be posted on YouTube asap!

Single,
BT

the nights that turn into mornings

Check it:

Welcome to finals week. The most distracted finals week of my entire scholastic career. It's not even that I have senioritis because there is no way in HELL I would trade any of this lifestyle for a real 9-5 and a salary. Eff that. College is amazing, and no one can convince me otherwise...

Which is exactly why I'll make it out of this mess with more student loans and degrees than any reasonable person should have. I decided this in the car today on the way to my internship. Step two after Shepherd is becoming more and more real and I'm becoming more and more resistant. Thought process number 4858793.9 tells me that I need to apply to Shepherd's Masters of Arts in Teaching program for the fall, get my teaching certification while working at a paper somewhere around here, living in an apartment on adorable German street and THEN going on to something intense and amazing like an M.A in Arts Journalism from Syracuse. From which I will write for Rolling Stone and then get my PhD., insist my students call me Dr. BT...and spend the rest of my days writing freelance and teaching college. I called mom to tell her when I was psyching myself up for internship stuff, and she approved!

That's not what this was supposed to be about.

What should I be doing right now? Writing my enterprise story on student internships and studying AP style for my exam tomorrow.

What AM I doing? Rocking out to "Catch Hell Blues" by The White Stripes with my sound-proof headphones because Alicia is watching "The Hills" and "The Hills" makes my IQ drop. Oh and blogging. Dork. Oh my God...I want to see the White Stripes live again! That was the most incredible and only positive experience I had on George Mason's campus.

I don't understand finals week. Honestly? Not having my exam until 12 tomorrow is seriously one of the reasons I went over to hang out with the boys next door and then over to my little's place. Everyone on this damn campus is drinking. Finals are NOT good, but, that goes along with my standardized test rant. It would be even more justified if I had slept this weekend. Instead, I stayed up all night watching the weather for SAI stuff Friday night, slept two hours and then drank until 3 on Saturday. BUT! We got busted by the cops! That's the first time in my life I've ever felt cool, even if he DID bust 20 idiots singing "I Like Big Butts" at the top of their lungs. Oh, and then there was the Border's experience.

Internship today was another one of those awkward days where I walked around Hagerstown Centre and asked people uncomfortable questions. Only, this time it wasn't about Daylight Savings, it was about holiday shopping. Front page material yet again fo sho. The shopping center DOES have a new Chipotle, though...and that my friends, is amazing. My last day there is Friday. Tragically.

Crap...12:25, this story and my exam are in less than 12 hours.

COFFEE? OOO! Grateful Dead.

Oh...and...has everyone seen the video footage of the long-eared jerboa?! He's ADORABLE!

Peace in the Middle East

my socks are wet

It's snowing in Shepherdstown, which means people suddenly forget how to function as normal human beings, and by the end of the day and three changes of socks later it makes me angry. i guess the weather has me bummin' because i really don't have time for it.

I prefer my snow days be spent under a big quilt in front of the tv or with books. I'd really rather not venture out since I only wear clogs in the spring and I don't like wet socks. Like right now...

The only issue with this is the fact that I should be in the lab working on my animation and my film for finals next week. But I'm not there because Shepherd closed at 4:00 and with the closing went the lab. I'm a bit nervous that they won't be finished in time for the presentations next week...and by a little nervous I mean a lot.

Ok, I have another issue with it as well. I didn't get to go into my internship today. I called in to see how the roads were in Hagerstown and one of the editors said not to chance it. This made me sad. I only have two days left there next week, and I really don't want to leave. My writing has grown so much since I've been there, and I am indeed more confident in my interviews. It's just generally a really good environment for me, which is so great.

I really don't like 'Hogan Knows Best.'

I can't even see the light at the end of the scholastic tunnel...not even a little bit.

White Trash Bash on Saturday, though! Woo!

dear diary.

i am bethany anne tremblay. the first of my blood family to go protestant and be raised outside of new england. the first to live at an undergraduate institution and the first to be given more than most people ever should be given.

i judge my friends based on what they call me...be it tremblay, tremmy, trem or bt...i know they know me best. the people that are only beginning to know me call me bethany. i get upset if i'm not called by one of these nicknames by whom i believe to be the closest people to me.

i fall in love quickly, and i've never been in love. by love, i mean, i care...i care more than most people. i can honestly say i love all of my friends. i want to write for rolling stone, even though most people think it sucks now. but really, that's a reflection of the popular culture we live in. i love reality television, but i rarely get into sit coms. i watch 'a shot at love with tila tequila' and 'i love new york 2' because it makes me feel a little bit better. i sleep under thousands of blankets.

i have a thing for british men, and the best way to insult me is to suggest i don't understand their humor.

i write...that's all i want to do. writing, the power of words and books make me happier than most things in this world.
and some day...i will be dr. tremblay...or bethany anne tremblay...phd. i wish it was lucritive to be a professional student.

and, i love to drink coffee, tea and kahlua. but not all at once.